Mir Babar Ali Anis was a renowned Urdu Poet. He was born in Faizabad in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in 1803 A.D. For many generations, the ancestors of Mir Anis had enjoyed distinction in poetry and literature. “The Mir was warm Hearted, Humility-loving and mirthful.” The atmosphere which Anis was brought up, did condition his life. The result was that he had matured into a sober, serious-minded and cultured man with an unshakable belief in self-dignity. His artistic temperament, punctuated with a sober and serious attitude towards life, made him sensitive and touchy. The same sensitivities are reflected at places his Rubais and Marsias. But, where as Anis was a highly self- respecting man, on the contrary, he was considerably self-effacing, such a great lover and exponent of truth the poet was that, for its bold expression, he cared for none. Anis knew the taste and requirements of His age and was ready to contribute to it his own share. Not only had he written his marsia with the utmost of gusto and buoyancy, but He recited his works with the dramatic fervor and faultless perfection of an actor, sometimes through the most appropriate gestures.​

As a poet Mir Anis was doubtlessly great and prolific, His fame was not confined to Lucknow or Awadh alone, it spread in the length and breathe of India, wherever the poet went, he drew large crowds and his audience comprised of men of all castes, creeds and religions. The number of his marsias runs into hundreds, if the whole number of his works is calculated in terms of couplets, Anis is said to have composed at least one hundred thousand couplets. He was a poet of Ghazal too. Had he continued composing ghazals, he would have perhaps earned a lasting fame in that field too. But there is a narrative that His father advised him to devote his talents to marsia and marsia lone. As an obedient son, he acted upon the advice of his father. His productive age was fairly long and he spent about 54 years in composing Marsias, Salams and Rubais.​

It had not been less bountiful with regard to his talents for the rubai and beyond doubt; Mir Anis had an extraordinary capability for the writing of rubais. It is a fact that many compilations of the rubaiyat of Mir Anis have appeared, but the most voluminous and qualitative is the compilation of Syed Mohammed Abbas. The Book is titled “Rubaiyat-e-Anis”. In the preface, the learned compiler has shed much light on the artistic excellence of the rubais of Mir Anis. In recent years, other selections of the works including the rubais of Mir Anis have also seen the light of the day. out of these selections the valuable ones are Hakim Amjad Ali Ash’hari’s “Hayat-e-Anis”, Prof. Masood Husain Rizvi Adib’s “Rooh-e-Anis” and Ehsanullah Abbasi’s”Nishtar-e-Sukhan”.​

He immeasurably enriched the contents of the rubai, making it much more colorful and multi dimensional. Anis further invigorated the rubai by introducing the tragic events of “Karbala” to it and their Moralistic Effect. Thus, he widened the scope of rubai to unfathomable limits. The result was that, after marsia, the rubai came to be reckoned as the most potential and representative medium for the didactic and reformative Urdu poetry.​

The inclusion of Karbala resulted in the florescence of the Urdu Rubai. Thus, many internal and external aspects of our life found their echo in the Urdu Rubai. Along with the adoration of Ahle-Bait (The Progeny of the Holy Prophet) and lamentation for the cruel treatment meted out to them, a variety of new topics such as fortitude and forbearance, resoluteness and determination, love and amity, fidelity and faithfulness, service and sacrifice, righteousness and truthfulness, submissiveness and humility, self-effacement and selfishness, perseverance and purposefulness, and many themes of kindred nature cropped up. These virtues got a place in the spectrum of rubai. The contrasting vices such as selfishness, lust for power and pelf, lust for passion, cowardice, hard-heartedness, infidelity, atheism, agnosticism etc were condemned. Rubai, like marsia, was further enriched with the inclusion of these vices. Thus for Mir Anis, rubai was not an exercise of imagination. It was a purposeful and effective medium for upholding and promoting the moral values of life.​

The Last few years of the life of Mir Anis were disturbed by the turbulent political events. It was the same period when the poet was faced with formidable economic difficulties. His health was fast deteriorating and he fell ill, and his illness took a serious turn. The great Poet breathed his last in the year 1291 Hijra, corresponding with 1874 A.D. The following couplet of Mirza Salaamat Ali Dabeer reveals not only he exact year of his death, but it is also the best tribute of the person who had been his life-long arrival. ​